What a great if bumpy ride!This book.which I found in the hostel in Seville by an author unknown to me, belongs way up on the lists of post apocolyptic fiction.It's obscurity puzzles me.or perhaps it's me that's obscure but I totally missed this one and wonder why.It will not do for me to summerize the plot.Just get your hands on it.Read it and laugh through your fear.

For me , one of the greatest science fiction books ever. It is a true ripping yarn which begins like a future world 'road movie', but as the hero travels ever closer to his destination, a whole world system has been constructed in your imagination. What I love about this book is the background disorder and desolation which is held together by an infrastucture of technology which no-one has the faintest idea how to construct. that is except a few engineers who can maintain it who are as secretiveFor me , one of the greatest science fiction books ever. It is a true ripping yarn which begins like a future world 'road movie', but as the hero travels ever closer to his destination, a whole world system has been constructed in your imagination. What I love about this book is the background disorder and desolation which is held together by an infrastucture of technology which no-one has the faintest idea how to construct. that is except a few engineers who can maintain it who are as secretive and insular as some bizarre religious order. It is like Cuba after forty tears of a trade embargo. Humans are the same, although dogs seem to have developed telepathy. There are plenty of sci-fi concepts portrayed, but none are explained. You have to figure out how post apocalypse this society is, and what was the nature of the collapse. This book inspired me in my own novel, Beyond the Pale: the outlander. ...more

Wow, this was a book which totally slipped under my radar back in the early eighties when I was crazy on Science Fiction - even more than I am today.

An unusual novel by a British author I just discovered this year when I saw an intriguing cover art in a used bookstore. I was compelled to pick it up and so I did.

It is sort of a post apocalypse novel, but no “real” apocalypse has taken place. Rather than any one catastrophic event, the world has simply progressedby Mick Farren, published in 1981.

Wow, this was a book which totally slipped under my radar back in the early eighties when I was crazy on Science Fiction - even more than I am today.

An unusual novel by a British author I just discovered this year when I saw an intriguing cover art in a used bookstore. I was compelled to pick it up and so I did.

It is sort of a post apocalypse novel, but no “real” apocalypse has taken place. Rather than any one catastrophic event, the world has simply progressed so far technologically and then decayed into what it has become in this novel. And the world may not even be Earth.

Phaid, the protagonist, is a gambler as the title suggests. He gets by in this tough new world with his wits, slight of hand card shark abilities and luck. But luck begins to run out on Phaid and sets him on a path of dangerous adventures spanning a great deal of the world.

This novel is really about discovering the world that Farren has created. We see giant maglev trains run by a select portion of society because only they have retained the ability to maintain these incredible machines. We discover that only one religion exists as it has finally wiped out any other competition.

Huge weather machines, which once governed the entire planet’s climate, have broken down to devastating global effect. Bands of frozen or burning regions cover the lands and travel between them is only accomplished by specialized machines. Robots have their own ambitions, society and underground politics. A genetically different (made or from another planet?) race has incredible mind control abilities, and one of these creatures has ambitions for man - not good ambitions though. Barbarian tribes roam the wastes and most people eek out a living any way they can.

Cities are vast but rundown and almost lawless. There are the privileged inner court which hangs around the presidents, and lots of poor. The world is so rich we hardly follow Phaid much at all except to see the next wonder. It’s almost a travel guide as we go from society to city to country and all over.

For this reason I found the novel a bit uneven and some parts hard to slog through. I was looking for more of a character story, but one never really manifested itself and what we have is a travel log of interesting places on an “alien” world.

Mick Farren creates a vast, interesting world filled with neat old and new technology and societies and races, but it left me wanting more.

An interesting book to read for sure, and there is even a sequel “Citizen Phaid”, but I’m going to pass on it....more

Farren was the singer with the proto-punk English band The Deviants between 1967 and 1969, releasing three albums. In 1970 he released the solo album Mona – The Carnivorous Circus which also featured Steve Peregrin Took, John Gustafson and Paul Buckmaster, before leaving the music business to concentrate on his writing.

In the mid-1970s, he briefly returned to music releasing the EP Screwed Up, albFarren was the singer with the proto-punk English band The Deviants between 1967 and 1969, releasing three albums. In 1970 he released the solo album Mona – The Carnivorous Circus which also featured Steve Peregrin Took, John Gustafson and Paul Buckmaster, before leaving the music business to concentrate on his writing.

In the mid-1970s, he briefly returned to music releasing the EP Screwed Up, album Vampires Stole My Lunch Money and single "Broken Statue". The album featured fellow NME journalist Chrissie Hynde and Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson.

He has sporadically returned to music, collaborating with Wayne Kramer on Who Shot You Dutch? and Death Tongue, Jack Lancaster on The Deathray Tapes and Andy Colquhoun on The Deviants albums Eating Jello With a Heated Fork and Dr. Crow.

Aside from his own work, he has provided lyrics for various musician friends over the years. He has collaborated with Lemmy, co-writing "Lost Johnny" for Hawkwind, and "Keep Us on the Road" and "Damage Case" for Motörhead. With Larry Wallis, he co-wrote "When's the Fun Begin?" for the Pink Fairies and several tracks on Wallis' solo album Death in a Guitar Afternoon. He provided lyrics for the Wayne Kramer single "Get Some" in the mid-1970s, and continued to work with and for him during the 1990s.

In the early 1970s he contributed to the UK Underground press such as the International Times, also establishing Nasty Tales which he successfully defended from an obscenity charge. He went on to write for the main stream New Musical Express, where he wrote the article The Titanic Sails At Dawn, an analysis of what he saw as the malaise afflicting then-contemporary rock music which described the conditions that subsequently gave rise to punk.

To date he has written 23 novels, including the Victor Renquist novels and the DNA Cowboys sequence. His prophetic 1989 novel The Armageddon Crazy deals with a post-2000 United States which is dominated by fundamentalists who dismantle the Constitution.

Farren has written 11 works of non-fiction, a number of biographical (including four on Elvis Presley), autobiographical and culture books (such as The Black Leather Jacket) and a plethora of poetry.

Since 2003, he has been a columnist for the weekly Los Angeles CityBeat.

Farren died at the age of 69 in 2013, after collapsing onstage while performing with the Deviants at the Borderline Club in London....more